Middle East

A yes to EU membership negotiations with Turkey. That was, as expected,
the outcome of the European Union Summit of 17 December. Why does the EU
want Turkey to become a member? Why did some of the EU rulers hesitate?
What kind of membership is on offer for Turkey?

Geo-political factors were finally decisive

The increasingly open imperialism of the EU needs the accession of
Turkey in order to expand its military and geo-political reach. The
French president Jacques Chirac made this very clear when, after some
hesitation, he declared himself in favour of negotiations. "It is in the
interest of France and the EU… Not least referring to the fact that the
EU, which is too light-weight compared to powers like the US and China,
’would carry more weight in the future through the presence of Turkey’"
(Swedish daily, Dagens Nyheter, 18 December).

Turkey has NATO’s second biggest army and has been a reliable allied of
US imperialism for more than 50 years. The attempt of the EU to achieve
a closer relationship with Turkey has made several influential US
commentators, among them neo-conservatives, change position on the EU.
Only a year ago, the leading neo-conservative, Deputy Defence Secretary,
Paul Wolfowitz, was advocating Turkish EU membership when he visited
Ankara. Today, these advisers are warning that the US might lose its
special relationship with Turkey. The occupation of Iraq has already
created big tensions, not least since Turkey refused US troops transit
across the country to launch a northern front into Iraq.

The EU tops are balancing between cooperation with the US and their own
strategic ambitions. The decision to lift the arms embargo against
China, agreed at the same EU summit, is a further step to strengthen the
global interests of European big business, partly at the expense of
their US rivals. The negotiations with Turkey, which will start in
October 2005, will for several years be a source of imperialist tensions
across the Atlantic.

The "soft Islamists" in the Turkish government have no alternative to
capitalist globalisation.

Prime minister Recep Tayip Erdogan has made maximum use of his
background to push through a neo-liberal policy that "normal" right wing
politicians would never have achieved. (As late as in 1999, Erdogan was
in prison for one month for "anti-secularism", after quoting a poem
saying, "Minarets are our bayonets... Believers are our soldiers").

Erdogan’s party won an earthquake victory in the elections. But instead
of the new course hoped for by poor voters he followed the line from the
World Bank, the IMF and the EU. The austerity measures following the
economic collapse in February 2001, when GDP fell 9.5 per cent in 2001,
was one of the worst in any country. Unemployment and poverty exploded
to new levels. The public sector debt is very high.

No economic boom is in store for the Turkish and Kurdish masses

The negotiations will lead to Turkish membership at the earliest in
2014. Meanwhile, workers and the poor in Turkey will be told that
sacrifices and worsened conditions are necessary in order to reach the
"EU dream". In the ten states that joined the EU in 2004, poverty
increased during the negotiating process. Transnational EU companies
opened new factories, but as the recent debate in Sweden has shown,
workers lose out. This was shown by the example of the Baltic workers
having no trade union rights in Swedish-owned companies.

Alongside the geopolitical reasons, big business’ hopes of increased
exploitation is a driving force behind the EU negotiations with Turkey.
It is already clear that exceptions would be the rule if Turkey joined
the EU. Turkey will never receive even the limited agricultural and
regional aid now given to Poland and other new EU states. Privatisation
and lower pensions will be among the targets being discussed with Turkey.

Illusions about the EU are particularly high among the Kurdish masses,
which hope for an end to national and cultural repression. However, two
reasons lie behind the fact that the EU tops have even raised the issue
of democratic rights. First, it is to ensure "freedom" and a legal
framework for private companies and their profits. Secondly, talk of
human rights can win some support in the domestic debates in the EU
states. Moral high-ground words do not cost money. But the Kurds have
nothing to hope for from the EU in a period when the treatment of
minorities is worsening in EU countries themselves, not least for
Muslims. The allies of the Kurds are instead to be found among European
workers struggling against the neo-liberalism of the EU.

EU leaders carry the responsibility for racism and suspicion against
Turkey

In its editorial on Turkey (18 Dec), Dagens Nyheter talks about "growing
anti-Turkish opinions". Over recent weeks leading EU politicians - for
example, German Christian Democrats, Dutch politicians and former French
president, Valery Giscard d’Estaing - have sharply attacked the
possibility of Turkish EU membership. Are they in fact only reflecting a
growing xenophobia in the EU countries? The editorial answers
indirectly, by referring to "a flood of distrust against aliens and
rulers" and the fact that many EU countries in 2005 will have
referendums about the draft EU constitution. This, it says, "Makes EU
leaders more careful and they are tempted to go along in a way which
risks first putting the brakes on and later bursting the European
community."

The use of xenophobia by the EU leaders will both legitimise and heavily
reinforce it. The attempt of the established parties to gain support
from the least conscious layers in society and to divert attention from
the massive attacks on welfare and workers’ rights are carrying
reactionary currents to the surface, which has been clearly shown in the
Netherlands this Autumn. The continuously worsening treatment of
refugees in the EU countries is playing the same role. Referendums on
Turkish EU membership due to be held in France and Austria is stepping
up this process. The nationalism of the bourgeoisie in the EU countries
is what provokes the editorial above to mention, for the first time, the
possibility of the EU "bursting".

The working class needs an independent, socialist alternative

The working class in Turkey has a strong tradition of mass struggle with
revolutionary features. The imperialist western powers have given
unconditional support to brutal military coups - the last one in 1980.
Capitalism, with or without the EU, has nothing to offer the workers and
poor of Turkey. In the present EU countries at present, particularly in
Germany, the class struggle is sharpening. The working class needs its
own political alternative, a fighting workers’ party with a clear
socialist programme. Only in this way can militarism and capitalism be
challenged, both in Turkey and in the EU countries.

From this week’s Offensiv, the weekly paper of Rättvisepartiet
Socialisterna (cwi Sweden)